


Fools Who Once Were Wise

by queenofthorns



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27320980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofthorns/pseuds/queenofthorns
Summary: This is very, very loosely based onGoetterdaemmerung(The Twilight of the Gods), the fourth opera of Wagner's Ring Cycle. And as Bugs Bunny once famously said, "Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?"Spoilers through 3.20 (“Crossroads, Pt. II)
Relationships: Ellen Tigh/Saul Tigh, Lee "Apollo" Adama/Kara "Starbuck" Thrace
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	Fools Who Once Were Wise

_“The might of love makes sons of men_

_Into fools who once were wise”_

\- _Hávamál_ (translated by Olive Bray)

Saul dreams of a woman lying in a bathtub ( _why a bathtub?_ , he wonders) weaving a cat’s cradle of words.“The gods die fire the tree where knowledge lives rings around the rose Aurora’s ashes salvation and doom all fall down the gods die young whom they love fire ends all things.”

“You’re not making any frakking sense,” he tells her.

The lighted numbers flickering across her face stop suddenly, spilling like pearls from a string, and the woman screams and slides under the water. Saul reaches in to pull her out, and encounters only a warm and viscous jelly.

Saul shudders himself awake.

***

_Are they gods now or demons? Is there a difference?_

“My name is Saul Tigh,” he tells himself. “I’m an officer in the Colonial Fleet.”

He stands his watch at Bill Adama’s shoulder as the dradis blips and Cylon raiders fall from the sky like birds.

 _Duty and honor_ , Saul thinks. Gods know he hasn’t always done his duty, but he will not fail at honor.

***

Everyone else on _Galactica_ is headed to the port hangar deck too. Even with a couple of Marines running interference, Saul has to use his shoulders and elbows to force a path for Bill down to the main deck.

They run into a brick wall of noise, but once upon a time Saul was a drill sergeant and he’s more than equal to this task. “Make way,” he bellows. “Commander on deck!”

Starbuck turns in Lee Adama’s arms and her voice rings out into the silence Saul has commanded . “I’ve found Earth.”

“Arrest her,” Bill says, and Saul nods to the Sergeant-at-Arms.

It takes four Marines to pull Lee away from her, and another four to manhandle her to the brig, still screaming that she knows the path to Earth.

***

“Three people,” Bill says, counting off on his fingers. “You. Laura Roslin. Kara Thrace. The last three people I’d ever expect to be Cylons.”

Saul doesn’t like the direction this is headed. “Starbuck’s pulled some crazy stunts before,” he says. “Doesn’t mean she’s a Cylon.”

Bill ignores him. “Kara …” His voice thickens and he swallows, hard, like his throat hurts. “If Kara’s a Cylon,” he says, “then it was all a lie. Zak. All of it.” He looks up at Saul, and his eyes are damp. “She was like my daughter.”

 _And I was like your brother_ , Saul thinks.

***

Roslin’s out of breath when she arrives, and Saul watches Tori fuss over her like a mother hen, until Roslin tells her to stop and sit down.

“So, ladies and gentlemen,” Roslin says. “What do we do about this … problem?”

“Sir,” Helo says. “If I may? Even if she is a Cylon …”

This is one time Saul is grateful Helo’s present at a briefing. It means _he’s_ not going to have to be the spokesperson for human-Cylon reconciliation.

“She’s a Cylon,” Bill says, shaking his head. “And that makes her a threat to the fleet.”

“But - ” Helo begins.

“It’s not the same situation as Athena, son,” Bill says.

“Let him finish, Bill,” Roslin says. She leans forward, props her elbows on her knees, and looks up expectantly. “I, for one, would like to hear what Captain Agathon has to say.”

“All I’m saying, sir,” Helo says, “is that even if she is a Cylon, Kara could still be on our side. It is possible.”

“What do you think, Colonel Tigh?” Roslin asks. “After New Caprica, I’m not inclined to be trusting.”

Only a Cylon could have come unscathed through fire and death, and only a Cylon would have brought three basestars with her. But Saul's a Cylon too, and he’s seved in the Colonial Fleet for forty years. Or is that all a lie? Has he been a traitor all those years without even knowing?

“Well,” Saul says, “she’s had plenty of opportunities to harm the fleet. _So have I_ , he thinks, and then he catches Tori’s eye. _So have we all._ “And she just took down a dozen Raiders out there.”

Roslin nods. “Captain Thrace brought back the Arrow of Apollo,” she says. “I’m inclined to give her a little leeway.”

“She stays in the brig,” Bill says. “And no one outside this room talks to her.”

***

It’s crowded in Starbuck’s cell – Bill, Roslin, Tori, Helo, Saul and a couple of guards with weapons at the ready. A whole fracking party. All they’re missing is ambrosia.

“Tell us who you really are.” Roslin looks more fragile than Saul has ever seen her, but chamalla or no chamalla, her voice is steady and her eyes are clear.

“I’m Kara Thrace,” Starbuck says, her eyes never wavering from Bill’s. “I am not a Cylon.”

“I saw the footage of your bird,” Bill says. “No one could have survived that. Unless they were a Cylon.”

“Why won’t you listen to me?” Starbuck says. “I’ve found the way to Earth.”

“Kara,” Helo says. “Even if you are a Cylon…”

She cuts him off, her voice rising. “I am not a Cylon. I didn’t die,” she shouts. “Why won’t any of you believe me?”

“If you didn’t die,” Saul says, “then what happened?”

“There was this light, like a tunnel.” Starbuck begins. “And then …” She looks around at their faces. “I don’t remember,” she admits. “All I know is that I was supposed to come back, to tell you the way to Earth.”

“I’ve had enough of this.” Roslin takes Tori’s arm. “Let me know when you’re ready to tell the truth.”

“Why would I come back if I weren’t _me_?” Starbuck pleads. “Admiral … I swear that I’m not a Cylon. I swear by all the Lords of Kobol …” She pulls a chain from under her shirt, holds the silver ring up so Bill can see it. “I swear by Zak, by what he meant to both of us.”

Bill grabs the chain, hard, so Starbuck’s neck bends before the metal breaks, and he’s left holding the ring. “No,” he says. “You don’t deserve to use his name.”

“I loved him,” she whispers. “He loved me. _You_ forgave me.”

Bill winces, as if she’s hit him. “You’re not the person I forgave,” he says. “You’re not the person my son loved.”

She lunges at Bill, but the guards wrestle her down, before she makes contact with him.

“Gods _damn_ you,” she shouts, as they walk out of her cell. “All of you. Why won’t you believe me? I’m not a Cylon. I’m trying to save us all.”

***

Outside Starbuck's cell, Roslin breaks the silence. “ _That_ went well,” she says, with a wry smile. “What do we do now?”

“Madam President,” Bill says, still breathing hard. “Laura … With all due respect … I think this is an exercise in futility. We should just - ”

“No,” Roslin says. “We need more information. As long as there’s a chance she’s telling the truth, I’m not airlocking her.”

Helo clears his throat. “Maybe a one-on-one?” he says. “With someone she trusts?”

“None of us, then,” Saul mutters under his breath.

"Anders?” Helo asks. “He’s her husband.”

“That’s why he might not be on our side,” Roslin says.

There’s also the fact that Anders happens to be a Cylon. Saul catches Tori’s eye; she’s thinking the same thing.

“There is someone else,” Roslin says.

***

“You’ll be present in her cell at all times,” Bill tells Saul. “Along with a Marine guard. I don’t want any possibility of Ka- Starbuck escaping.”

“You think she’s going to talk to Lee with me hovering over them like a chaperone at the school dance?” Saul says. “Not a chance.”

Bill nods. “Visual contact then. And don’t let them know the mikes are on.” He rubs his eyes. “It’s been a long day,” he says. “Time for all of us to get some rest.”

***

Rest is the last thing Saul wants. Rest means lying awake in the dark, wondering who made you and why and whether everything you remember is a lie. Instead, he roams the corridors of _Galactica_ , growling “Carry on!” at the knuckle draggers who jump when he comes up unexpectedly behind them.

Some instinct takes him down to the hangar deck, quiet now and empty, except for Lee Adama sitting in Starbuck’s Viper, staring at something that isn’t there. He’ll have to have words with the deck-gang, remind them that this boy isn’t the CAG any more and he doesn’t get to come and go like he owns the place.

“She _died_ ,” Lee says to himself. Thank the gods he hasn’t seen Saul, because the last thing Saul wants now – or any time, really – is a heart-to-heart with Lee Adama. “I _watched_ her.”

 _I gave Ellen the cup_ , Saul thinks. _And I watched her drink._

***

“Who am I?” he says to his reflection in the mirror. _God or demon?_.

“You’re Saul Tigh,” Ellen says, brushing her fingers across his freshly shaved cheek. “My husband.”

He turns, slowly, so she doesn’t take flight, but today the gods are merciful and she’s still there. “If you knew,” he says to her. “What I really was. Really am.”

“I wouldn’t care,” she says, quieter than the real Ellen. “I loved _you_.” And then she laughs. “But that didn’t matter in the end, did it, Saul?”

***

Saul gets to the brig early. He wants to see the other Cylon: Shelley Godfrey, Gina, Caprica – whatever the hell her name is. He watches her pace out the boundaries of her cell, a goddess in chains, and wonders how anyone could love Gaius Baltar.

Are there other Saul Tighs? Do they love other Ellens?

***

It confuses Saul to see Lee in civvies, to know that Bill Adama’s son walked away from the Fleet, even though the boy never belonged in a uniform.

“Your father’s orders,” Saul says, as the guards pat Lee down. “Take it up with him.”

Lee takes a deep breath, and then thinks better of whatever he was going to say.

Bill ordered Saul to listen for any references to Earth, any hint that this girl is a Cylon. Bill _didn’t_ order Saul to watch Starbuck’s radiant smile or Lee’s face when he takes her in his arms. Saul turns his blind eye to the glass around Starbuck’s cell, and tries not to hate Lee Adama because _his_ love came back from the dead.

***

"Well?” Bill asks him while they wait with Roslin to hear Lee’s report.

“I couldn’t hear most of what they said,” Saul tells him.

Lee isn’t much more forthcoming.

“Give her maps and star charts, and access to the navigational computers, and she’ll show us the route,” he says.

“Why didn’t just she tell _you_ where we’re supposed to go?” Bill asks.

“Because I told her not to,” Lee says, looking around at all of them. “I told her to give you directions one jump at a time, so she stays out of an airlock.”

Saul snorts. Lee is frequently a royal pain in the ass, but he’s no fool.

“How do you know she’s telling the truth?” Roslin asks. “How do you know she really went to Earth? She could be a Cylon agent… This could all be a trap.”

“No,” Lee says. “It’s Kara. I trust her.”

“And just out of curiosity, Major Adama …” Roslin stops. “Sorry, _Mister_ Adama. Do you intend to broadcast your belief in Kara Thrace?”

“What would happen to her if I did?” Lee asks. “If I walked out there and told all those reporters that someone’s found the route to Earth?”

“I imagine they’d have some questions about how a pilot who died three months ago found a route anywhere,” Roslin says.

“Exactly.” The hatch is too heavy for Lee to slam on his way out, but they all get the point.

“What do we do now?” Saul asks no one in particular.

“Keep her in the brig,” Roslin answers. “And hope for the best.”

***

The day Lee’s sworn in as a member of the Quorum, Bill comes to Saul’s quarters and asks for a glass of ambrosia.

“It’s Joe’s rotgut now,” Saul says.

“That’ll do fine,” Bill says, with a smile. “I could really use a drink.” He sinks down onto Saul’s armchair and hey sit in silence for a while, until Bill clears his throat and says “It’s the right thing for him” like he’s been practicing how that will sound.

“Maybe it is,” Saul says.

Maybe it’s a good thing Lee’s out of a Viper and marginally safer among the civilians; Bill won’t have to watch his son die on a dradis screen.

***

Roslin’s condition worsens, and she takes up residence in _Galactica’s_ sickbay, so the Quorum of Twelve has to meet on _Galactica_ as well. Saul gets the unwelcome task of acting as their military liaison.

“Why me?” he asks Bill. “Helo’s more … personable.”

“You’re a hero, Saul,” Bill tells him. “Some of them know you from New Caprica. You’ll distract them. I don’t want anyone asking questions about who’s in our brig.”

***

The Quorum is holding a particularly dull meeting about recycling clothing and how they go about the tricky problem of requisitioning it from the families of the dead. _How did Ellen always look so lovely when she had so little?_ For all Saul cares, the civilians can start wearing gunny-sacks, though they've probably run out of those too.

His reverie is interrupted by a fit of coughing from the newest member of the Quorum, ended only when Lee collapses onto a pile of papers, blood pooling under his nose and mouth.

“Lords of Kobol save us,” Tom Zarek says. “What’s happened to him?"

“It’s just a respiratory infection,” Cottle tells Bill in sickbay. “It’ll probably clear up on its own, but just in case, I’ve given him a course of antibiotics. And we’d better keep him away from the President. Her immune system …”

***

Over the next few days, reports come in from the _Gideon_ , where Lee’s berthed since he left _Galactica_. Children and healthy young men and women are collapsing where they stand, bleeding and coughing. The same pattern on other ships. Finally, Cottle simply requisitions three vessels to serve as quarantine ships.

“It’s the damnedest thing,” Cottle says. “We’d expect to see a respiratory infection spread like that with kids but … It’s as if …” He pauses, as if he doesn’t want to make his suspicions true by voicing them.

“As if what?” Saul asks him.

Cottle looks around and then lowers his voice. “I think this thing is targeting everyone of childbearing age.”

***

Roslin escapes the infection spreading through the fleet; it's the cancer that kills her. Tori breaks down at her funeral, weeping on Saul’s chest, much to his surprise.

“What will you do now?” Saul asks her.

“I’ll be helping the transition team,” she says. “Laura asked me …” She starts crying again, the ugly gulping sobs of heartfelt grief, and Saul pats her shoulder because he has no idea how to deal with this.

“I’m sorry,” she says, finally. “I think I’m done.”

“You loved her,” Saul says. It comes out as a statement, not a question.

“Yes.” Tori wipes her eyes and nose with her sleeve. She looks like hell.

He’d grown to respect Laura Roslin on New Caprica, but he never understood the love she inspired in Bill, in this girl. The only thing Roslin ever did without calculation was dying. Maybe not even that. “Why Laura Roslin?” he asks.

“Why Bill Adama?” Tori counters.

 _Because he’s what I always wanted to be_ , Saul thinks.

***

The epidemic spreads to _Galactica_. Within days, three quarters of the pilots, half the deck gang and at least a dozen CIC personnel keel over. Cottle takes the port hangar bay for his quarantine ward – there's no one left to fly the planes in there anyway.

“I can’t field a CAP, sir,” Helo says. “I don’t have enough pilots.” He stops and coughs so hard that Saul can feel his own lungs seizing up in sympathy.

Bill waits for Helo to breathe again. “Any suggestions?”

Helo shakes his head, wheezing.

Athena’s been listening in. Saul remembers how he held a gun to Boomer’s head – does Athena remember too?

"Sir,” she says, “permission to speak freely?”

“Granted,” Bill says.

“There’s one pilot in the brig, sir,” she says.

“No,” Bill says. “Not her. We’ll just have to start recruiting among the civilians. Dismissed.”

Saul waits until Helo and Athena are out of earshot. “Bill, I agree with you Starbuck’s either a Cylon. Or crazy. Or both. But that never stopped you before. She’s been back for a couple of months, and we haven’t had so much as a single Raider pop up on our dradis screens. Even if she _is_ a Cylon, maybe …”

They’re interrupted by a call for Bill.

“Yes,” he says into the receiver. “I understand.” When he turns back to them, he’s aged fifty years. “I’m needed in sickbay. Do what you think is best,” he tells Saul. “I trust you to make the right decision.”

***

Every day, when his watch is over, Bill makes a slump-shouldered pilgrimage from CIC to sickbay.Saul tries to join him as often as he can; he ties Bill’s facemask behind his head when Bill’s own hands are shaking too badly to knot the strings and reminds him to grab a couple hours in his rack from time to time.

“I’ll be right here,” he says. “We’ll call you if anything happens.”

Saul sits by Lee’s bed, remembering when it was Bill laying half-dead on a bed in sickbay, and how terrified he was that Bill wouldn’t come back, that he’d be in charge of the whole stinking mess forever.

The squeak of a flight-suit and the sudden sharp smell of rubber and oil - _flightdeck_ \- jerks him awake. Starbuck is standing across from him, on the other side of Lee’s bed.

“Sir,” she says.

“Captain,” Saul responds. “No mask?”

“I’ll take my chances,” Starbuck says.

***

The sick become the dead; the “quarantine ward” becomes the morgue. Saul finds himself barking orders at people who’ve been gone for days. For a while, they try to observe military protocol. Chief and Athena stand next to each other at their spouses’ funerals, their children wailing in their arms. Dualla breaks down at Gaeta’s funeral, and then two days later, she’s gone too. Funerals and flags and prayers become the measure of their days.

But the dead are inexorable and after a while, it’s easier just to open the airlocks and send them out in to space. Every ship in the fleet trails a wake of bodies behind it.

Tom Zarek announces a draft of all former veterans, and soon _Galactica_ ’s manned by graybeards. _Like me_ , Saul thinks.

***

The music starts again, sounding from the bulkheads, insistent until Saul surrenders and follows it to the gym. Anders and Chief are already there.

“Where’s Tori?” Saul asks.

“No one’s seen her in a while,” Anders says. “Since …” 

Since the President’s funeral.

“You look like hell,” Saul says to Anders. “But you still look too good …”

Anders doesn’t understand at first, but Chief does. “Everyone else our age is sick or dead,” he says. “Well, except Starbuck.”

“And everyone already thinks _she’s_ a Cylon,” Saul says. “I’m surprised no one’s gotten suspicious about you two.”

“So … what do we do?” Anders asks.

“How good of an actor are you?” Saul says. “If you can fake being sick, do it. If not, hide somewhere aboard _Galactica_. After we finish counting the bodies, there’s bound to be a witch-hunt. Someone’s going to wonder why you two survived. And let me tell you, no one believes in miracles.”

***

Somehow, against all the odds Cottle gives him, Lee’s still breathing, even though every breath rattles in his chest and whistles through blue lips. His skin is stretched so tight across his sharp bones that it looks like it will split, and there are purple rings under his closed eyes. “His heart is very strong,” Cottle says.

But Bill’s heart isn’t. His hands start to tremble and his voice sometimes quavers when he forgets a thought in mid-sentence.Saul thinks it’s the waiting without hope that’s aging his friend by the day, by the hour.

 _End this_ , Saul pleads, though he doesn't know whether he's asking Lee, or the gods he doesn't believe in. 

***

Whatever he did, whatever else he was, Lee was once an officer in the Fleet, a Viper jock, the Commander of a Battlestar. He was Bill Adama’s son. So he’s not going out an airlock like a piece of trash, not if Saul Tigh has anything to do with it.

These days they have more frakking Vipers than they’ll ever have pilots to fly them. One less won’t make any difference.

He and Starbuck work in silence, packing explosives under the engines and fixing the timers on two detonators. _Just like New Caprica_ , Saul thinks.

“Do you think this will work?” he asks Starbuck.

“There’s no reason why it wouldn’t, sir,” she says. “We just program the navigation systems, put her in the launch tube and point her away from the Fleet.”

Fleet. Now that’s a joke. There are 4,367 survivors left. Give or take whoever died that morning.

“Colonel Tigh,” Starbuck says to him when they’re done. “I know no one believes me but, for what it's worth, I really did go to Earth.”

“Lee believed you,” Saul says. “For what it’s worth.”

That breaks her.

***

“I knew you’d want some kind of a military funeral,” Saul says to Bill. “It’s the only thing I could think of.”

“Good, good,” Bill says absently and Saul wonders if he’s even heard.

“Viper Three, cleared for takeoff,” the LSO says. His name’s Hatton, Hayden - something like that - some hack who did a tour of duty back during the first Cylon War. These days, that makes him one of the top performers on _Galactica_. Hagen. That’s it. Saul too busy thinking about Hagen to register the announcement until it's too late.

“Viper Eight, cleared for takeoff.”

“Frak! Frak, frak! Stop her,” Saul yells. But Starbuck’s already shooting through the launch tube.

Saul knows it’s all in his head, that the explosions are far enough away that they wouldn’t feel the impact. But he’d swear _Galactica_ shudders when the two Vipers’ signals merge and then disappear from the dradis.

***

They move all the remaining survivors from the Fleet to _Galactica_. The port hangar bay’s now a refugee camp – _again_ , Saul thinks. Just like after New Caprica. Only this time, they don’t even fill the place and their voices echo off the walls.

There’s another difference. Bill isn’t there to greet them.

***

Saul remembers how the world went gray when Ellen died. The only place he could stop thinking about her, the only place with color or light, was at the bottom of a bottle. Bill's grief, though, is different, unexpressed and unrelenting, a dark pit where Bill suffers alone, with no hope of rescue.

"Did you never want children?" Bill asks, one morning when Saul is trying to cajole him to get out of bed, shave and eat, button his uniform, shine his shoes, and go up to the flight deck and pretend he gives a damn who else lives or dies.

"We were never blessed..." _Or cursed._ Saul replies, though truthfully he doesn't remember even discussing the topic with Ellen. It's almost laughable, to think of the two of them as parents.

"I wish I had been a better father," Bill says, softly.

 _He should have been a better son,_ Saul thinks, but what he says is only "Lee loved you, Bill." That was the only thing he ever had in common with Lee Adama.

***

“I figured out who Patient X was,” Cottle tells him over the last bottle of rotgut on _Galactica_.

“No offense, Doc, but … it’s a little late, don’t you think?” Saul takes a swig and wipes the bottle before he passes it back.

“I just wanted to know,” Cottle says. “That’s all.” He leans forward and taps the table. “It started right here on _Galactica_. I couldn’t see it, because our crew got sick later, but then I started thinking about the first person who got sick.”

“Lee Adama...” Saul nods. “I was there.” It seems like so long ago.

“And he spread it through the Fleet.” Doc shakes his head. “I should have realized."

“Don’t blame yourself, Doc,” Saul says. “You put him in quarantine as soon as you knew. What else could you do?”

“I just keep thinking about it,” Cottle says. “He was probably infectious for a couple of days before he collapsed. That’s been the pattern. But … I should have realized sooner.”

There’s nothing Saul can say.

“The only thing I can’t figure out … This thing - it isn’t like any disease I ever saw before, nothing like anything from the twelve colonies. Where’d he get it?”

It takes a couple of minutes through the fog of booze and smoke, and then Saul remembers. A prison cell. Starbuck and Apollo and a kiss. How jealous he’d been because he’d never hold Ellen again.

 _By gods_ , Saul thinks. _It was all true. Starbuck_ ** _did_** _find Earth._

Aurora’s ashes. Salvation and doom.

***

Four Cylon basestars jump into _Galactica_ ’s dradis. There’s no one left to fight them. And there’s no one left who cares.

Except Saul Tigh.

***

The Cylons take out the main power in five minutes.

In the dim glow of the emergency lighting, Saul can pretend they’re fighting a different war, the war they fought when the world was young and he knew who he was.

“She’s a good ship.” Bill lays his hand on the dradis console.

“Aye, sir,” Saul says. “That she is.”

A Cylon nuke breaches _Galactica_ hull. Sirens shrill and alarms blare throughout the CIC, even though there are no repair teams left to send.

“It’s been an honor, Saul” Bill says, when they pick themselves up off the floor.

Saul salutes. “The honor was always mine.”

He’s Saul Tigh and he’s an officer in the Colonial Fleet. When he dies today, that’s the man he’ll be.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a long time ago for an opera-based fic challenge; the respiratory pandemic was based on my reading of John M. Barry's _The Great Influenza_ , but of course, it's sadly far easier to imagine in 2020.


End file.
